


Of Beginnings, New and Old

by Officer_Jennie



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Warring States Period (Naruto)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28063071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Officer_Jennie/pseuds/Officer_Jennie
Summary: Itachi wakes up to a strange, unknown family, in a strange body, and must find a way to navigate the situation he's found himself in - and live the new life he's been thrusted into.
Relationships: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Itachi
Comments: 32
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheIntellectualWeeb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntellectualWeeb/gifts).



> I wrote this AGES ago and don't remember if it's any good :| Tags like characters included will be updated as the story goes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up again had never been in his plans.

Itachi’s last memory was equal parts pain and relief. The path he’d set himself on all those years ago could never have brought him anywhere kinder, something he’d known ever since he saw a bloodstained face fall away down the cliff side into the rushing waters of the Nakano.

Seeing his little brother’s face one last time was all he dared to wish for. To set Sasuke firmly into his plans of protecting Konoha, protecting his last remaining family the best he could even as his lungs and heart gave out. So much had gone wrong already, so many ghosts hanging over him and whispering his sins in the dark - and it was always dark, with his eyesight failing him as he’d failed so many others.

His last memory was of Sasuke’s face. The shock and fear stretching it thin. Cold wind making the blood dripping off his hands feel cool. His heartbeat petering out as he fell to the rocks and rubble, exhausted to death and finally able to sleep peacefully for the first time since he was a child curled up safe in his mother’s arms.

Waking up again had never been in his plans.

The room was pitch black. His body sluggish and weighed down from sleep - and wrong. No restrains held him down but something set his mind into a panic, the thick quilt ripped off his body as he scrambled blindly around the tatami floor.

A glass object clattered to the floor when he hit a table, his desperate clawing towards some corner of the room sending it flying. His hands finally met a cool wall, and Itachi patted around trying to find an exit, his eyes flickering wildly here and there despite not catching even the dimmest source of light.

He didn’t know someone had heard him until large hands were pulling him back away from the wall. Whoever had come for him was massive - at least as tall as Kisame, easily lifting him and holding his limbs still even as he struggled and clawed to get away from them.

It was the humming that calmed him in the end. The familiar tune that he was certain he’d never heard before, the soft voice whispering to him in-between verses, soothing his fears away and leaving him a shaking mess in her arms.

“It’s alright,” the woman hushed him, a gentle thumb wiping the tears away from his cheeks.

“Okaa-san’s here, little bird. She’ll keep you safe. It’s alright.”

She sounded nothing like the woman who’d been Uchiha Mikoto, and yet Itachi believed her every word.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't his place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I finished this chapter July 26, 2019.  
> ....no wonder I don't remember shit about it xD

The world was dark. Not just the room he’d woke up in, which the woman who called herself his mother referred to as his room. Not just the hall he briefly walked down as he was lead to the washroom, or the small bathroom he relieved himself in.

It took a while, but he found the window in his bedroom. Not even the sun, which he felt warming his face, did anything to brighten up his surroundings.

He’d been going blind for years, but not even blindfolds had ever darkened his world to absolute black before.

It was easier to move about the room when he didn’t think about it. As if his body knew better than his mind, feet automatically sidestepping around the corners of his futon, chin just reaching the windowsill when he stretched up on the tips of his toes. Midday sun still warm on his skin, the slight breeze tickling his nose as it brought in pollen from the outdoors.

None of it made much sense to him, but at least he knew now why he was so small - why his body felt so wrong at first. Anyone used to being an adult would find the transition to a child quite jarring.

Someone slid the door to his room open, the bamboo framing creaking a bit as they did. Itachi dropped flat to his feet as he turned instinctively to face them, face scrunching up when no matter how hard he squinted he couldn’t see a single bit of whoever had joined him in his room.

“Whatcha doing?” Whoever it was flopped right down onto his bed from the sounds of it, tone and words giving off the impression that they knew each other well. Itachi thanked his experience in undercover missions for his impromptu skills while at the same time cursing his lack of information.What he wouldn’t do for Kakuzu’s habit of finding every minute detail of their enemies useful at the moment; the only person Itachi had met so far had been the woman who called herself his mother, and she had given him little more insight into his surroundings than that. Knowing where the bathroom was didn’t exactly tell him how he was supposed to respond to the young boy currently kicking his foot against the floor.

“I was trying to feel the sun.” It sounded dumb. But children didn’t usually sound very smart, and from what he could tell he had come back as a young child at that.

“You can’t feel the sun, baaaaaka.” The sheets rustled as the boy scooted closer to him. “It’s in the sky where not even the trees reach."

The juvenile urge to insist quite heavily that he wasn’t an idiot caught Itachi off guard, surprised by the knee jerk reaction to wanting to stomp his foot in indignation. It was lost to his surprise and confusion however, leaving him simply standing at the window while his unnamed visitor rustled about making himself comfortable on his futon.

Munching sounds were certainly enough to draw his full attention. He cocked his head as he listened, his lower lip jutting out before he could stop himself. “Don’t eat in my bed. You’ll get crumbs in the sheets.”

“Why are you so picky?” His guest whined, his next words muffled by something - from his position, more than likely a pillow - but still just legible. “Kaa-san spoils you.”

Never in his life had Itachi ever been spoiled. Hearing that made the childish side rear its head again, this time not held back by any surprise or confusion over it and making him huff quite loudly, tone just as whiny as the boy’s who’d invaded his room. “I’m not spoiled - that’s my bed. Go eat in your own.”

“You are too spoiled, Kaa-san still tucks you in and everything.”

Growing up with an older cousin who loved to tease him made it easier than it used to be to recognize a teasing tone, but it didn’t make it any easier to stop the irritation that came from being called as such. Itachi pouted further as he fisted the sleeves of his yukata, trying and failing to control the unstable nature of childlike emotions.

He hadn’t remembered having such strong floods of emotions before. Itachi frowned then, going back over the boy’s words in his head. He’d said Kaa-san - was he referring to the woman who’d comforted him, or someone else that worked for her? Considering the dangers of revealing that he had no memory of the first years of this current body’s life, flat out asking if this boy was his brother wasn’t in his best interests, but…

Heart aching for the small child he used to dote on, Itachi went back to staring out the window, reminding himself that this family wasn’t technically his. No matter that the woman seemed so warm and nice, soothing his fears with her song, or that he might have a chance at being a proper sibling.

This wasn’t his place. He had no idea where this was, but he knew it wasn’t where he came from. Death was supposed to have been the end for him as it was for everyone else - though really he had no proof it was the end for anyone, considering he’d never spoken to the dead before.

“Why so down, ‘Tachi?” His head whipped around at the sound of his name, eyes widening despite the fact that they could perceive nothing. It was a reaction that the boy interpreted as surprise from his sudden proximity, his visitor giving a small if relatively sincere apology for frightening him, patting his head as if he wasn’t also a small child.

“Feeling the sun isn’t doing anything for you. Oh, I know!” The boy moved away from him again, the window ledge creaking as he hoisted himself up onto it. “Come see the tadpoles I found in the pond! We’ll have to be quiet cause Tou-san’s home, but he’s talking to Ji-san anyway so he won’t notice.”

That did not sound comforting in the slightest. Itachi wrinkled his nose at the idea of sneaking out, wondering why on earth they’d have to be sneaking out to a pond to begin with - but his arm was snatched up by the eager boy before he could question any of it, and since he rather liked it attached to his body he decided to listen to the boy’s insistent whining and follow him up and out the window towards wherever the pond might be.

Walking outside of the house proved to be a lot more difficult than inside of his room. Having lived many years nearly blind helped only a little, his eyes flickering uselessly as he stumbled over rocks and roots and other things in his path. A hand found his elbow before he could fall at least, the boy grumbling but sticking himself right to his side as he helped him on, pointing out almost every single rock they passed as if just stating their existence would help him not stub his toes on them.

He really should have insisted on finding some shoes before they left. At least the pond wasn’t too far away from their house. From what Itachi could tell of his surroundings, mainly by the feeling of leaves and dirt underfoot, they seemed to be in a somewhat woodsy place outside of the more structured area they had just snuck through.

“Over here!” The boy pulled him a bit too hard in his excitement, rushing them both over to crouch down near the sound of slow moving water. He splashed a bit in it, grasping one of Itachi’s hands and dumping a dozen or so wriggling creatures into it. “Aren’t they so cool? Nii-san thinks they’re gross, so I’m gonna put some in his tea.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Nii-san? Itachi ran a thumb over one of the panicking tadpoles, wondering if he’d really gotten so lucky as to have two brothers, or if this really was just some lonely boy related to a house worker who had a habit of doting on him.

He was trying to not get his hopes up, but considering how long it’d been since he had any sort of friendly contact with a family member…

The boy he still had no name for continued to splash around in the pond, chatting here and there as he played with the creatures he could find there. After a time Itachi slipped his feet into the cool water, letting the tadpoles free and hoping he hadn’t squished any by accident. Voices carried by the wind their way was all that broke the silence of the woods besides his companion, and with the world so dark to him Itachi found himself dozing off, small body already tired despite not having done much beyond walking there.

His rest was interrupted before he could fall fully asleep. A bit dazed, Itachi tried to look around them when he heard someone coming, hearing his companion’s panicked splashing as whoever it was approached them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Before Itachi could have a chance to brace himself, someone grabbed him and yanked him up harshly by his arm, causing him to wince in pain. “You know he’s not allowed outside of the house.”

“I just wanted to show him the tadpoles.”

“He can’t even see them, Izuna.” The grip on Itachi’s arm didn’t lessen despite him trying to pry it free, worried it might bruise it was holding him so tightly. “Don’t ever bring him out here or take him anywhere outside of the house again. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Otou-sama…”

Itachi was drug all the way back to the house, stumbling behind the man who his companion (Izuna was his name, apparently) had called his father. And if his suspicions ( _hopes_ ) were correct, that might just make him his father in this strange life as well - his father who had spoken about him as if he weren’t even there, who almost shoved him into his room and left him with a sore arm and shoulder from the rough treatment.

No one else came down the hall to see him until lunch, and then again until dinner. He had to find his own way to the bathroom once or twice, cursing his small bladder, feeling his way back to the bedroom where he sat alone in the dark. No books able to keep him company, no way to train either his mind or his body, no word puzzles or math problems that he so loved to solve whenever he’d allow himself to indulge in them in his first life.

He tried sitting on his bed and thinking through training, visualizing his way through movements and kata, something he knew from experience actually did help whenever one was incapable of performing them constantly. Since his body had weakened exponentially through overuse of the sharingan and whatever illness had infected his lungs, he’d spent every spare minute he could on visual training in his last life, his muscles already knowing exactly how to move through an action before he so much as performed it a single time.

But less than a few minutes in, his body was itching restlessly, mind refusing to stay focused. He fidgeted here and there, getting up and trying to pace the feeling away, only ending up more frustrated before he gave up and threw himself onto the bed with a rather childish huff.

He was bored. Bored without anything to take the boredom away. He buried his face into his pillow, pouting while he kicked his feet up behind him.

What did normal civilian children do whenever they couldn’t train? He played a bit with the tag he felt poking out of the pillow, rolling the edge of it under his thumbnail. They would probably read or draw something, both things he was incapable of doing now. Maybe played games with other children, something he’d just been scolded for.

Well. _He_ hadn’t been scolded over it, but it had been made clear he wasn’t allowed to do it anyway.

At least he didn’t end up suffering in his boredom for long. Within the hour, Itachi had passed out, left to slumber and dream of the life he’d left behind for this strange new one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will probably be edited for style and structure more later, when I'm not on mobile and using shitty copy-paste that doesn't keep my formatting At All. RIP my eyesight from squinting at the screen too long.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What had happened to the boy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past me had way more motivation to write than current me :| So here's yet another previously finished chapter I forgot existed

Calling this new life strange was a bit of an understatement. Itachi had never been one to stay stationary despite his lacking health, always on the move even before his time as a missing nin. His childhood had been spent toddling after his father and private tutors, learning everything there was to know about his clan and how to make his body a deadly weapon. In his teens, he’d taken missions back to back more often than not, pushing himself to the limit and following his father’s wishes for him to join anbu.

Now, it was expected of him to remain in the house at all times. He ran his hand along the cool wood of the walls, memorizing each footstep in hopes that it would make his cage expand just an inch further. After he’d managed to explore it a bit, he learned it wasn’t necessarily a small house - it was quite similar to their first home back in Konoha, where they’d lived before the Kyuubi had attacked and decimated half of the village - but staying in one place for too long could make even long corridors and rooms close in around him.

It didn’t help that all he could see was just more darkness, never able to really tell how large his surroundings were.

Finding the kitchen had been one of his top priorities. After having little to no appetite for years it was strange to feel queasy after half a day without food, though the absence of it had been mostly his fault anyway. When the woman who called herself his mother had come around to bring him some, he’d assumed it was far too early to eat, and despite the concern tinting her voice he’d assured her he didn’t need anything.

He hadn’t been sure how he’d recognize the kitchen when he found it, but it was easy enough once he took smell into account. Making a mental note about how many steps he’d taken from his room, he went about trying to find the cabinets or the fridge, hoping to find something to eat that didn’t require much preparation.

It took a lot of fumbling around and several trips around the room for Itachi to realize there was no fridge. He stopped at the entrance way with a scowl, thinking for a moment that maybe he  _ had _ somehow missed the darned thing every single go around, because there was no feasible way that the kitchen didn’t have one. They had fresh food - he’d had some just that morning - and fresh food had to be kept  _ somewhere _ .

“Kaa-san said if you scowl like that, it’ll stick on your face.”

Itachi jumped at the sound of the boy’s voice -  _ Izuna’s _ voice, he reminded himself - and turned to stare blankly towards the direction it came from, not at all pouting about being snuck up on.

“Well. She actually said that about Nii-san. Nii-san scowls way too much, maybe it already got stuck that way.”

“That’s not how faces work…”

“How would you know? You can’t see them.”

Itachi did his best to ignore that rather hurtfully blunt comment, knowing the boy was a  _ child _ , and went back to feeling about the kitchen for some much needed food.

Of course, now that Izuna had found him, he wasn’t going to leave him alone. For a minute or two the boy just followed him around, not even talking, though the occasional brush against his shoulder suggested he was leaning over trying to see what Itachi was doing.

Izuna’s patience eventually ran out, and he gave an irritated huff as he stopped Itachi. “What are you even doing?”

“Trying to find food.”

“Oh. Have you checked the ice box?”

That was certainly a new way to refer to a fridge. Itachi shuffled his feet a bit, keeping one hand firmly on the cabinets next to him. “I can’t find it…”

His hand currently not on the cabinets was snatched right up, and Itachi barely had time to brace himself before he was being drug across the kitchen, stumbling around some sitting cushions in Izuna’s haste.

“It’s right over here, silly. Hasn’t Kaa-san showed you where it was before?”

Itachi just shrugged in response, not willing to lie one way or another;  _ he _ hadn’t been shown, but for all he knew the boy he’d replaced had been.

_ Replaced _ . That chilling thought shocked him still. Horror crept up into his gut as he realized that there had been someone here  _ before him _ \- what had happened to the boy? How had Itachi assumed his identity?

“There’s leftovers from lunch if you want that, but everything else I think Kaa-san would have to cook for you… She won’t let me use the stove after last time.”

“Leftovers are fine…” Itachi felt around for somewhere to sit, not feeling like his legs could hold him up much longer. As luck would have it, he found the cushions he’d stumbled upon, plopping himself right down and hoping his mind would calm itself down before he was forced into much more conversation with the boy currently fixing his dinner (at least he assumed it was close to dinner time).

When the food was plonked down in front of him, Izuna dropping down on a cushion as well, Itachi had to sniff at it to find out what it was. His nose wrinkled despite how good it smelled, stomach growling despite his complete and utter dislike for beef.

It would have been more difficult to complain or search out something else for himself, so Itachi found his chopsticks instead, holding the bowl steady with his other hand and firmly telling himself it was  _ not _ meat he was about to eat. Just something that smelled like it. Maybe a strange new sort of fish, or a vegetable that had been cooked in beef stock.

Not that the beef stock would make it any better. He remembered distinctly from his childhood how his mother used to try and tell him he wouldn’t be able to taste it, and every time his stomach would curdle at the overpowering taste of beef and meat and  _ gross _ .

The first bite was, of course, almost entirely meat and little rice. He tensed and just waited for his gag reflex to kick in as it always did, hoping he could at least hold it back and not be sick in the kitchen- except…

It tasted good.

His stomach didn’t protest when he swallowed the bit of beef, nor did his tongue. If anything was protesting it was his brain, because he knew full well how much he  _ hated _ meat, except that he  _ didn’t _ apparently. And it wasn’t just hunger that made him think that either.

Apparently, his taste buds were different. Definitely didn’t make him feel any better about his ‘replacement’ theory, but he was too hungry to think on that now. Before long he’d scarfed down the entirety of the leftovers, having eaten perhaps a bit too much though there was little he could do about it now.

He scooted the bowl away, listening to the boy next to him jabber on about his day, how he’d gone to the training field with Otou-san and Nii-san to practice his kata. Itachi made a mental note that this was definitely a shinobi family then, something he hadn’t even thought to question before, having taken it for granted that it would be. A potential miscalculation, really; a dangerous one. He propped his head up on one hand, scratching at the table with the other. More care had to be taken. There was no telling what differences might affect his life here, what assumptions might save him or get him killed.

Conveniently enough, he had practice infiltrating with little to no information. Something he wasn’t entirely proud of, but it was what it was.

“Does your eye hurt?”

Itachi frowned at the sudden question, picking at a hole in the side of the table. “No. Why?”

“You’re pushing on it like it hurts.”

He lifted his head back up, realizing that Izuna was partially right at least. He had been pushing on his eye, though it didn’t hurt even a little.

“Are you sure it doesn’t hurt?”

“Yes.” Itachi put his hands in his lap, fiddling with the fabric of his pants just because there was nothing else for him to do.

Would he ever get used to not being able to do things? It felt like there should be some way around this; being blind shouldn’t make life so dull. Being mostly blind had been a struggle as well, of course, but he’d found ways to work around his sight issues before.

Clearly, he just needed to find ways around his current issues as well. He got up from his cushion, feeling his way around the table and off to the wall, hearing Izuna protest from his own seat but paying him no mind for the moment.

If he could get used to being partially blind, he could get used to being fully blind as well. Hell, he had fought and traveled for  _ years _ with most of his sight gone. Sure, Kisame had been there to help, but just because his partner wasn’t here now didn’t mean he wouldn’t have help when he needed it.

“Hey!” He heard Izuna come jogging after him, catching up to him halfway down the hall. “You didn’t even hear about the salamander I found this morning! It was as big as my whole arm! I bet I could go find it again.”

The tone he used wasn’t very promising. Itachi made sure to count his steps as he went - only ten more before the hallway should bend, and then a few feet further before he passed the first door… “Why would you want to find it again?”

“Because if Nii-san thinks the  _ tadpoles _ are gross he’ll  _ hate _ the salamander.”

“You should be nice to him.”

“And  _ you _ shouldn’t be so  _ booooring _ \- c’mon, it’s probably still at the pond, we should go try to catch it!”

Itachi had only a split second to dig his heels into the flooring to prevent the boy from dragging him off again, trying and failing to get some purchase on the wall as well. “Didn’t Otou-san just say I wasn’t allowed outside?”

He realized a second too late that he’d never confirmed whether they had the same father. Sure, it had certainly been  _ implied _ , but implications did not mean certainties. Right after his inner chastising for assumptions he made yet another.

But at least this one worked in his favor as well. The boy didn’t correct him at all, just dropped his arm and groaned. “You aren’t seriously going to listen to him, are you? It’s not like he can know  _ everything _ \- no matter what Kaa-san says…”

“You’re the one who got in trouble for it, not me.”

“So it shouldn’t matter to you!”

His arm was snatched right back up again, and this time Itachi let his brother drag him off and outside.

It was probably nothing short of a miracle that kept them from getting caught again. They must have spent full hours out by the pond, with Izuna splashing about after the salamander (which he did manage to catch, but then it bit him and he threw it right back in the water) and then other horrified residents there as well. Itachi kept his feet in the water but didn’t do much of anything else besides see just how well this new body was accustomed to chakra control exercises.

As it turns out, not very well at all. He’d never had much chakra storage anyway but being left with a literal  _ child’s _ amount of it was infuriating. By the time his brother had worn himself out, Itachi was beyond exhausted and needed even more help walking home - help that Izuna was at least willing enough to give while he gabbered on and snickered about the pocket full of small frogs he was sneaking home.

He was thankfully led right back to his bedroom, rather literally led there considering Itachi couldn’t put much more effort into figuring out where he was going beyond just making his feet go. And as soon as he was alone in the room Itachi collapsed onto the futon, crawling his way up to the pillows and worming under the covers.

Despite how lonely and boring his room was, he was glad that Izuna left him to the peace and quiet. His whole body felt like it was melting into the futon, in that way that meant quite clearly that he wouldn’t be bothering to so much as twitch for the rest of the night.

It was for that reason that he quite literally groaned out loud whenever someone knocked on the frame of his door, burying his face right into the pillows even as he heard the door slide open.

“Sweetheart, you’re going to get your futon all dirty.” He protested when the quilt was pulled away from him, still clutching his pillow like it might save him. “Come on, now. Best to get a bath before your father sees you - or do you want him to know you’ve been sneaking about?”

Itachi peeked his head out from where it was sunken into the pillow, squinting his eyes when he couldn’t see his mother anyway. Habits died hard. How long would it be until it no longer felt necessary to look at people?

“Come on, dear. A quick bath and then you can sleep all you want.”

“You’ll wake me up for breakfast.”

His mother had a beautiful laugh. Soft and lower pitched than his own mother’s, his first mother’s - did they look similar? Did this woman keep her hair long like his mother had? Did she have the same color eyes, same nose or cheekbones?

Did  _ he _ look the same?

There were better times to think on all of this. Like whenever his brain and body didn’t feel like mush. He let his mother pick him up and carry him off to the wet room (though he did put up quite a bit of a pout whenever he realized he was  _ little _ , and little meant his mother felt it necessary to help him bathe). By the time he’d soaked in the tub for a while he was beyond ready to drop, not even having the energy to pull the covers up over himself anymore.

“Sleep well, dear. And do try to be more careful about sneaking off with Nii-san, hmm?”

“He drug me away…”

“I’m sure he did.” She sounded far too amused to be even slightly concerned about their sneaking about. With a kiss goodnight to his cheek and forehead, he heard the cloth of her yukata rustle against the tatami, and soon the door slid open and shut for the final time that night.

Somewhere in the house, down one hallway or another, some screeching was going on - Itachi couldn’t be sure because he was far too tired to concentrate, but it sounded like some sort of fuss about frogs in someone’s room. It sounded far too close to a dream to be real (frogs in the house was child dream material, yes?) so Itachi readily ignored it for sinking further into his pillows and his dreams, letting the weight of the day drag him down into unconsciousness.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was an outlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck, here's another chapter.

There were far too many things Itachi didn’t know about this world yet.

He sat on a cushion in the kitchen, nibbling a bit on some rice balls that he’d found in the ice box (something that he discovered was more like a  _ rudimentary _ fridge, since it was literally a box with ice to keep the contents cool instead of running on electricity). Thinking through his mental list of things he knew for certain about his situation was revealing far too many holes in his knowledge, something that was more dangerous than anything else.

Baring the bigger questions (how did he get here? Why didn’t he stay dead? Where was Sasuke now? The rest of akatsuki?), there were so many  _ smaller _ details that Itachi had no knowledge of. Well. Small in the grand scheme of the world, really.

He didn’t know where he was geographically. It hadn’t been terribly cold outside so he knew he couldn’t be too far north, and considering he couldn’t smell salt or fish in the air he knew he was at least on the mainland.

That wasn’t much to go off of. He felt around for his tea, wrinkling his nose when he tasted it despite already knowing that  _ this _ body apparently liked mugicha.

Knowing where he was on the continent wasn’t the most pressing of issues either. Certainly something he could get away with asking. It’s possible that the child who’d existed in the body before him had never shown interest in knowing; and since they had been blind, they wouldn’t have been shown a map of the area before either.

Still. The issues the closest to home were the most pertinent - and the most dangerous to gather information for. Itachi listened to the quiet of the house around him, feeling some familiar yet not familiar chakra in the office down the hall to his right. His father, or at least his  _ new  _ father (it was so difficult to know how to refer to his new family - was it a betrayal to his own to think of them as such? He’d certainly had enough of betraying them for several lifetimes) was the only one currently at home besides himself, busy doing paperwork for the clan that Itachi had no name for.

He didn’t know what clan he was in. If it was a clan at all, a  _ noble _ clan or not, what daimyo they served, who they might be allies with. He knew they were all shinobi at least, and considering the size of the compound he could  _ assume _ they had a clan name.

This was something he should know by now. Asking outright what his last name was, even if asked to Izuna, was a dead giveaway that something was wrong with him. So how was he supposed to figure out what clan he belonged to now?

Izuna would still be the safest bet to get the information from. Though their mother was a kind woman she noticed far too much for it to be safe to ask her, their father seemed to have little to no interest in being any influence on Itachi’s life at all, and the oldest brother was still a bit of a mystery considering Itachi hadn’t met him yet.

Sitting in the kitchen really wasn’t getting him anywhere. Itachi still dawdled for a while, enjoying the break from exploration with the light lunch, mapping and remapping the house out in his mind the whole time. If he was correct, he’d at least been around the house enough to have the halls memorized, but the contents of some of the rooms were still a mystery. Especially the ones down the right hall near where his new father’s study was.

Being a child at least gave him the natural curiosity excuse. Not to mention how meddlesome even most civilian children were (if he’d heard correctly; he had little to no experience with civilian children himself), and it was common knowledge that shinobi were a nosy bunch. Poking around in the rooms of his own home would hardly be frowned upon by parents who would be encouraging him to know as much as possible by the time he started his training.

Odd that they didn’t seem to be pushing him to train yet. In his first life, he’d already been taught how to kill at this age - had actively killed a man on a battlefield, something that had given him nightmares for years before death had become more natural to him than even living.

Itachi finished off his lunch, taking his dirty dishes to the sink and finding the wall. He let his fingers trail across it as he started counting his steps down the hall, restarting his adventure in mapping out the whole house.

There were a few rooms he’d not been in on this side of it. His father’s office was one of them but he walked past that room, not wanting to risk bothering the man when he already seemed irritated (if his chakra was anything to go off of, anyway; Itachi had never been much of a sensor so it was difficult for him to tell someone’s mood through chakra alone. Just yet another skill he wanted to work on whenever he had the chance), moving on to the next room that was around the bend in the hall.

His first impression of the room was that it was warm. Warmer than the rest of the house though the warmth easily leaked through the thin door anyway. A breeze was blowing so he knew where much of the warmth came from at least, the sun and warm air pleasant and not stifling, making the room feel relaxing and welcoming beyond anything else.

Walking the perimeter of the room was the safest and easiest way to begin exploring for him. The walls felt much like every other wall in the house - some uneven bumps in the wood, knots here and there, the grain all laid in the same direction - but they had been warmed by the sun that beat through the open window.

It was at the open window that he felt something other than the wall. A raised surface next to the windowsill, with small boxes that his fingers could only just reach the top edges of. He tried to stretch up further to feel what might be in them but his arms and legs were just too short. Itachi dropped down on the flat of his feet, pursing his lips as he idled next to the window.

There was little he could do about that mystery, then. He moved past the strange boxes to the other side of the window, feeling the curtains and then the wall again, walking on until he found the door once more. Nothing along the walls besides the window and whatever sat there, unless there were perhaps items hanging out of reach on them that he couldn’t feel.

Investigating the center of the room took more precaution. Each step was taken with extra care, his feet never actually leaving the ground as he scooted them across the floor. He kept his hands out to try to find what might be there waiting for him, concentrating so hard he only barely noticed his mother’s chakra entering their home.

Eventually, he did find something. In the middle of the room his fingers met yet more boxes, these just tall enough for him to not feel the insides as well. But here at least some of the contents were spilling out of their containers: plants. Leaves and stems hanging over and out of their square pots. There were a few rows of pots actually, all on stands, soaking up the sunlight and some ever so quietly rustling against each other and the pots in the breeze.

“Would you like to know what they are?”

Itachi was getting rather tired of people spooking him. He scowled over at where his mother’s voice had come from, hoping her small laughter wasn’t at him.

“Come here, sweetheart, I’ll show them to you.” She was at his side in only a few moments, wrapping her arms around him and lifting him up before he had a chance to protest. Being picked up by people was definitely not something he was used to anymore. “Why don’t we start with this one, hmmm? Can you feel its leaves? They're almost sharp at the edges so be careful; they won’t hurt you but it might smart just a touch.”

She described every one of the plants to him. Named them all from heart, gave a purpose to why she kept them - “This one’s perfect for soothing burns” and “If you chew the leaves of this, it clears up your sinuses like a charm”, and even “It takes a lot of petals, but if you collect enough you can get a beautiful dye out of this. Perfect for painting.” - all patiently, all as if she had the whole day and more to show her plants off to her son.

By the end of it, Itachi knew far more than he’d ever remember. He was placed back down on his feet, feeling a gentle pat on his head that he tried his best not to pout about.

“If you’d like, Kaa-san could show you how she cares for them.”

“How would you show me that?” It was difficult not to grumble about it. Not being able to see, not knowing what was going on; no matter that his mother had shown him the plants in a way, he doubted he could know how she cared for them without  _ seeing _ how she did - unless she merely described everything to him while she did it herself.

“Very easily.”

Itachi soon found himself with a glass of water clutched in one of his hands, and he was lifted off of the ground and right next to the plants once more. His other hand was led gently to the soil of one of the plants - the one meant for burns, if he remembered their placement correctly - as his mother told him to pay attention to how it felt.

“This is how I water them. You can tell if they need more by feeling how moist the soil is, something that looking wouldn’t ever show you. One’s sight can be the most deceptive sense, after all.”

Itachi knew that well enough. Pulling the strings of genjutsu taught him that people so often refused to reject what their eyes told them, where they were readily willing to question what their nose or ears or fingers might be trying to tell them. It had certainly been a hard lesson to drill into his own brain since, being raised as an Uchiha, he’d been taught that one’s eyes told more truth than anything else.

Even the sharingan could miss the truth if it was presented falsely, no matter how talked up its powers were.

“My sister was blind, you know.” Itachi found himself situated in his mother’s lap a few moments later, held tight to her as she ran her fingers through his hair. “It might just run in the family. Maybe there have been more through the generations; it’s a shame the records were lost.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by lost records but he was finding it hard to care. As an adult he had loathed any sort of physical contact (though he had learned to live with Kisame’s supporting presence at his side, needing it as badly as he had after his body had all but given up on him) but just being close to her felt so nice, having a gentle hand petting his hair so comforting in a way that he hadn’t experienced in well over a decade.

It was much easier to ignore the very human need for affection when he wasn’t a small child who craved it.

“You know, by your age, she was already quite the fighter.” Itachi gripped the collar of her yukata as he buried further into his mother, a little embarrassed but enjoying the attention far too much to fight it anyway. “Ninjutsu was difficult for her to use since keeping track of the trajectory was so important, and shurikenjutsu wasn’t ever anything she touched. But she excelled at kenjutsu and even proved to be quite the taijutsu user as well.”

“Will I start training soon?” It all reminded him of how odd it was that he wasn’t yet. Odder still since this family seemed to train their children just as young as his clan had started training their children; if his two older brothers were training, why was he not training with them?

“Sweetheart, I’m not sure you’ll…” His mother sighed. A warm and gentle hand found his face, stroking his cheek as she found her way around whatever statement she was trying to make. “There are…many parts of your life that, as your mother, I have a say in. But there are others where not even being your mother will allow me the right to decide or even give considerable input into, one of which is your training regimen. It’s the same for Zuzu and Dara as well; even if I wanted them to train more, or train less, my concerns or suggestions wouldn’t be heard.”

That didn’t exactly answer his question. Though he supposed that was the point; his mother was doing that infuriating thing where adults talked around children’s concerns in such a way where they weren’t meant to notice no answer had been given at all.

She was doing her best more than likely. Trying to make sure he wouldn’t be upset with whatever actual answer there was to his question. It was just a shame that he knew  _ exactly _ what she was doing, because now all he could do was pout into her shoulder. Avoiding the answer meant the answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Or, at least, wasn’t what she thought he’d want to hear, and since most every shinobi child wanted to start training as soon as possible he could only assume he wasn’t going to be allowed to.

His life was apparently going to stay infuriatingly boring. He’d only been here for a few days at most and it was already  _ dragging _ by with how little he could do, staying so stationary was going to be one of the hardest things that had ever been expected of him - besides the many glaringly obvious choices he’d had to make in the past.

“Why can’t I train?” She’d made it clear enough that  _ she _ couldn’t change whether or not he could, but had said nothing about the whys. And considering he was quite literally a child there was little reason to question why he’d be so whiny about it. Playing the part certainly came easier than it should have but there was nothing to be done about being in a child’s body besides wait for time to alter it.

She didn’t answer him at first. As far as he could tell, it didn’t seem like she wasn’t  _ going _ to just that she had no idea how exactly to explain it to him. It was beyond frustrating to not be able to tell her that stating it bluntly would be the best; the concepts wouldn’t go over his head since he’d lived a few decades already. But he had to be patient and let her think on it, hiding his face into the soft material of her yukata as the breeze rustled the plants around them.

“I want you to know this, Itachi. Know and remember this for me: being blind is not something that should limit you. Your potential and worth should never be boiled down to a small part of your person, no matter how it affects the way you live.” She brushed some hair away from his face, tucking it behind his ear. “That is the truth, love, but not everyone is willing to see the truth of the world.

“My sister lived quite similarly to most shinobi her age. She fought and trained - yes, some of her training required more work, and some even required private tutoring, but there are always areas in  _ everyone’s _ life that require a bit more work than others - and she even died defending our clan, as many before and after have as well. But my sister wasn’t one of the clan’s heirs.”

Itachi wasn’t ready for the flood of tension those words sent through him. Clan heir. He gripped his mother’s yukata tighter, scooting closer to her despite already being right up against her as it was.

_ Clan heir _ .

“Your father has any and all say in what his heirs do,” his mother continued, her tone a touch clipped now. “He decided it would be too dangerous for you to train as your brothers do, and has been quite insistent about you not leaving the home. As you’ve noticed.”

She let out a long and deep breath after that, and when she spoke again she sounded calmer. “It is…frustrating. Infuriating. But there is little I can do beyond encourage you to sneak out and enjoy the world whenever you can or want to. Let Zuzu show you the pond; he’s excitable but careful enough and will keep you safe. Let Dara show you how to hold a weapon and wield it properly.  _ I _ can’t go against your father’s wishes but will defend their choices to the death if they choose to, especially if it’s over something as ridiculous as this nonsense.”

That was certainly surprising. He lifted his head up, squirming around until he was more comfortably seated in his mother’s lap. It had been confusing enough whenever she’d not lectured him one bit about sneaking out with his brother, but actively encouraging it? Encouraging him to go against his father’s wishes - the  _ clan head’s _ wishes - merely because they weren’t what she considered to be correct?

Most everyone he’d been raised around wouldn’t have dreamed of going against his father - his first father.  _ He _ hadn’t honestly ever wanted to; everything in him had screamed that he had to follow orders, and it came down to which orders came from a higher power in the end. Even if he wanted to believe it was his consciousness that had driven his sword,  _ it hadn’t been _ . He’d just been following orders like the soldier he’d always been.

Where did she find the courage? The conviction to go against what had probably been drilled and beaten into her as well: that those in power had all the say, and weapons had no right to argue?

He envied her for it, and took her words to heart just as she’d told him to. Listened to her even as she brushed off the serious topic and went back to showing him everything he could ever want to know about the plants she raised, wanting to know more about her for more than just information purposes.

Mikoto had been a loving mother. Had doted upon her children as best she could, especially Sasuke (Itachi’s heart twinged at even the thought of his name, wishing he knew something -  _ anything _ \- about his brother’s situation now) but she had been just a pawn of the Uchiha clan in the end, just as so many others had.

There would always be love in his heart for his dearest and first mother, but there had been little about her that he could emulate beyond her skill in shurikenjutsu. Little that would help him, anyway. But this woman - this new mother, who loved and doted on him just as much -  _ she _ was an outlier, and Itachi would learn everything he could from her.

Being a mere weapon for his village had led to far too many mistakes for Itachi to ever be that shinobi again. In this life, whatever this life may be, he would do better, even if it tore him asunder thinking in such finality about his first life as an Uchiha.

He could only hope he did this clan better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that's all past me has done on this story so far. Anything else will take a while to get done, because I have about 20 stories all vying for my attention atm


End file.
